Laurence Kaye vs Laurence Kaye: the pirate and the lawyer in conversation

Laurence Kaye (above, left), known as Loz Kaye, is the leader of
the Pirate Party, which strives to reform copyright and patent laws
and drive state transparency and open rights. Laurence Kaye (above,
right), known as Laurie Kaye, is a lawyer specialising in digital
law and intellectual property. Wired.co.uk took the opportunity to
get both Laurence Kayes into a room to talk about the Digital
Economy Act, copyright reform, site-blocking and the Digital
Copyright Exchange.

Wired.co.uk: Are hackers being radicalised by government
policy?Loz: I think it's important to recognise
that with DEA, SOPA, ACTA, Hadopi and the rest of the alphabet
soup, I think many people who actually care about what the internet
is frankly feel under siege at the moment. There is a lot of anger
out there. If you look at the UK's Cyber Security Strategy 2011 hacktivism is
specifically mentioned, but none of the actions say what's going to
be done about it. Then if you look at the Prevent terrorism strategy, hacktivism isn't specifically
mentioned, but it does have the chilling sentence "Internet filtering across the public estate is
essential". It's precisely that sort of statement that's
causing alarm and fear and anger.

Laurie: I still think we lack some norms that
apply online [as they] apply offline. But actually netizens are
often self-policing; If people don't acknowledge attribution,
others will complain. There's a desire in the online world to act
responsibly. There are instances online where that sense of
responsibility isn't being exercised. Let's consider the Newzbin case. BT had knowledge that the site was allowing
access to movie studio protected content. The court said it was
right to take it down. There are instances where it is right. But
then we've had other cases such as SABAM which were very broad orders to ISPs to filter
everything the court said no. We are still trying to find the
points of balance.

Is site blocking ever an appropriate
tool?Loz: Site-blocking from our perspective is an
unacceptable tool, whatever the court ruled. It is not effective.
Newzbin has already made a get-round, and we are also seeing a
possibility of a legal whack-a-mole situation. This case isn't
about Newzbin, it's actually about BT and what they do. For a
communications company like BT, it's like Linda McCartney being
forced to open an abattoir. Technically it's difficult for them but
in terms of brand and business philosophy it's hugely damaging.

Earlier this year Vince Cable announced that the section of the DEA to do with
site-blocking wasn't going to be enacted and everyone went
"hooray". But that's now utterly superseded so we are in an
extraordinary situation where Hollywood is dictating our digital
policy and not our government.

Laurie: We can't escape the fact though that we
are still in the early stages with the DEA, you've still got other
legislation coming up to the copyright directive -- a rights owner
can ask an ISP to take down a service in specific circumstances.
Like it or not, the intermediary (be it ISPs, social networking
sites, auction sites) can't avoid the fact that because they are in
the middle of this ecosystem, they have certain responsibilities.
That will always be there. We need to grow the number of digital
citizens who accept we have rights and responsibility, must respect
people's privacy and their own rights. When you establish those
norms you get a shrinking problem.

What are your views about government intervention in
social media, be it through screening or blocking? On one hand
William Hague is praising the role of the internet in the Arab
Spring, but at the same time the riots provoked the government to
talk about blocking Twitter.Laurie: Twitter is a publishing
platform and has provided an important role in freedom of
expression. But that's not an untrammelled right -- there's a
balance between freedom of expression and privacy. The
internet first emerged in the early 1990s and we talked about
cyberspace as if it was a parallel universe. That gave rise to some
of the issues we are dealing with, namely information wants to be
free (aka content wants to be free), freedom of expression without
qualification etcetera. But as we develop we realise that internet,
cyberspace, it's the world. Digital media is media. Whilst we
recognise certain unique attributes online, fundamentally if we
believe there has to be a balance between rights and
responsibilities in certain areas then it applies online as well.
How we police it is another matter.

Can we civilise the internet?
Loz: I reject this narrative of civilising the internet.
We are just dealing with media full stop. I can't see the role for
governments in this in any kind of heavy handed way. Laurie's right
about the self-policing role. Often the wrong people are outside
the big tent events. As long as it feels like it's directed by the
same stiff institutions, the very same players that need to be
involved will feel alienated from it.

Laurie: I agree. This is all of us. I wouldn't
use the phrase civilising the internet. But developing the norms
requires everyone. There definitely is a role for regulation,
whether it's at the level of the governance of the internet around
issues relating to net neutrality of the domain name system, or
whether it's at the level of content. But it's also about
education. I would have part of the curriculum about what it means
to be a digital citizen. The web gives you huge power for good, but
it can also be used in the wrong way. Just because technology makes
something possible doesn't mean you can have what you want. You
can't have everything for free otherwise there wouldn't be any
content.

It's Creative
Commons' 10th anniversary. What are your views on this sort of
licensing structure?Loz: I'd like to wish Creative Commons happy
birthday. I think it's quite an inevitable reaction to the idea
that intellectual property is one size fits all. It's a welcome
player in that area. For artists and those of us who create content
it's one of the moves for gaining back control. Many of us are
beginning to feel that [intellectual property] -- instead of
helping us -- is becoming a method of control in the era of 360
degrees. It's really good to see the effect Creative Commons has
had with art scenes like Jamendo -- it's had a really positive
cultural effect.

Laurie: It's really important to clarify
what it is. Sometimes there's a false dichotomy that copyright and
creative commons are different. Creative Commons is a series of
licenses which gives a tool to somebody that creates a work
protected by copyright -- be they a musician, artists etc -- to
express to people...what you can and can't do with it. Everyone in
the creative industries share the desire to make it easier to find
works, know what they can do with it, and pay for it. We have the
biggest creative industries in Europe, it's one of the areas we can
get ourselves out of a mess economically. Creative Commons is great
in a sector where artists want to share and create mash ups but if
you want to be a commercial author, you might think twice about it.
I hope we get into a world where there are a series of different
licenses, especially ones that can be read by machines. We have a
long way to go until search engines can decide what you can and
can't do with stuff.

It seems to be that you have Creative Commons for people
who don't mind giving their content away, but if you want a license
that entitles you to be paid you need to get a lawyer. There is
nothing in between that is web-readable and easy-to-use that lets
you get paid.Loz: I'm not sure that is the case. We
are seeing a cultural shift in the way that content creators think
about monetisation. Sites like BandCamp for example, is a way to
create direct relationships between creators and buyers. The way we
see the trend going is decorporatisation, splitting up into much
smaller entities from a business and cultural perspective.

Laurie: We've also got licences from Apple and
Amazon. Publishers themselves are offering platforms where you can
buy direct. Creative Commons has created a tool that is good for
the individual creator, academic and not-for-profit sector. I think
we're going to see other licenses emerging. So we have a world
where if you want to find a piece of music, photo or app you can
search, click and pay and the money goes back to the artist and
anyone who has added value along the way.

Comments

It would be bloody hard to get Linda McCartney to open an abattoir. I'm not sure there is all that much to dig up any more....

Hardlydan

Jan 3rd 2012

very simple approach.1) accept that if you charge more for something, people will be more likely to steal it2) price products according to (1)soooooooo.... charge less, people will buy. charge a lot, accept piracy. but charge a lot &amp; EXPECT the country to back up your crazy marketing approach????? only possible in a country that hasn't yet decided NOT to spend valuable money punishing people for downloading stuffdecriminalize drugs &amp; downloading! (the national vote is coming)

david

Jan 3rd 2012

Great interview Loz, always good to read you.Laurie:> "Creative Commons is great in a sector where artists want to share and create mash ups but if you want to be a commercial author, you might think twice about it"I don't see any evidence for this at all. In my view, using Creative Commons licensing is often the smart thing to do if you want to monetize your art. "All rights reserved" models do not fit how artistic content is now used, and are trampled underfoot by those seeking greater freedom with popular culture.Those artists who follow the trend of how media is consumed, and work with consumers to provide content in a form that the market demands, with less restrictions, can find great opportunities to profit from their work.